


The Atrementus Collection - Nymphs and their Ways

by Heliopause



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Exile, Fanart, Meta, Multi, Pseudo-History, Worldbuilding, onset of Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7234492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliopause/pseuds/Heliopause
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy looked at the books on Mr Tumnus' bookshelves:<br/>"They had titles like <em>The Life and Letters of Silenus</em> or <em>Nymphs and Their Ways</em> or <em>Men, Monks, and Gamekeepers; a Study in Popular Legend</em> or <em>Is Man a Myth?</em>"<br/>***<br/>Many years later, the Cair Paravel Reading Room is hosting an exhibition of books and papers relating to a little-known hero from Narnia's past; the Curator has compiled a series of pamphlets for visitors, setting each book or document in its historic context.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Atrementus Collection - Nymphs and their Ways

The Cair Paravel Reading Room proudly presents the second in its exhibition series of items from the Atrementus Collection, a collection comprising every book, paper or private correspondence known to be associated with the celebrated Faun Tenvis - bookbinder, publisher and leader of our people in the dark days of early Winter.

The volume selected for display throughout Fruitswell represents arguably the most significant moment in the history of Narnian publishing in the pre-Winter period; it marks the transition from Tenvis' original copying and bookbinding workshop, to his later more sophisticated publishing house. This was the publication which first used the tabular printing apparatus, or _press_ , sent from Calormen by the exiled artist Rideal. This device was used to reproduce multiple copies of Rideal's representations of Narnian nymphs, incised on wood by the artist, carefully inked over and transferred to paper (though this technique, called _wood-cutting_ , was by no means unknown in Narnia at the time; see previous exhibition). More importantly, for the first time in Narnian history such pictures were presented as part of a printed book, this being the artist's own, rather naïve, reminiscences of the character and customs of Narnian Nymphs. Both a sample woodcut and some printed text are viewable on the pages selected for display.

The book had some circulation in Narnia, but was primarily intended for the Calormene market, both for curious Tarkaans and Tarkheenas, and for the small, struggling communities of Narnian exiles then resident in Tashbaan and Azim Balda. It was of limited immediate financial value to Tenvis, but was pivotal in opening the way for his future sales to markets outside Narnia, thus proving invaluable for the survival of the publishing business in the increasingly difficult years to come. ( _forthcoming exhibition: Calormene Proverbs, a handbook for travellers._ )

Curiously, of those few copies preserved inside Narnia, two had been stolen from the printing-room by disgruntled copyists, who evidently saw the new printing press as a threat to their livelihood. The annotations still readable inside these copies provide the only record now existing of the names and opinions of the copyists and workers within Tenvis' workshop. ( _forthcoming exhibition: Copyists and bookbinders of the Tenvis workshop._ )

The story of the artist is also of some interest. Rideal, Beruna-born but for many years a Marsh-dweller, was one of the last Humans to leave Narnia to take up a life of exile. After initial struggles, he achieved no little success in Calormen; his woodcuts even became fashionable for a time as part of the usual courtship gift-exchange practised in Calormene noble circles. (Part of the reason that so few copies of this book survive can be traced to the practice among impoverished Narnians of disassembling their long-hoarded copies and selling the illustrated pages piecemeal for this purpose.) Nevertheless, despite this accession to moderate wealth and social status, Rideal evidently yearned for the rest of his life for the watery home he had left behind, and looked back longingly to his former interactions with the Nymphs (and more particularly with the Naiads) of Narnia.

In his curious claim that there was some peril attendant on Nymph-Human interactions some commentators have seen a possible clue as to the reasons for the gradual drifting away of Humans from Narnia. Since Nymphs are in some sense a visible exhalation of Narnia herself, it may be that these suggestions, whether reflected in real experience or not, express the growing sense over the closing years of the pre-Winter period that Narnia was, as the saying goes, _not a land for Men_ ; how far the Witch fomented this gradual uneasy realisation is a matter for more general historians.

***

… be sure if it was so, but certainly in my youth it seemed to me that the Nymphs of the rivers and springs and wetlands of northern Narnia were more eager to sport with me than those of the south, and they of the waters more open to my fumbling uncertainties than they of the woods.  
I have heard tell and have seen and have even myself enjoyed the sure, green imperturbable entwinings of the Tree-Nymphs ( _Dryads_ , they are more often called in Narnia). It was one of the Lady's own, an Apple, who tenderly took me all through one long summer day, into her warm, rough embrace, and opened to me the wonder of Narnia's sweet unbounded fecundity, with greenleaf opening and the soft petals showering down on me. But though that day, that warm night, was for _me_ a wonder and great pleasure, I did not feel in _her_ the excitement at the newness of all things - or of myself - which I craved. The Dryads know, and have known, and know no unknowing. I was young and longed to be where I was not known already, when I myself knew so little.

So it was that I went north, and westward, to the wilder reaches of my homeland, and turned to the northern Nymphs to learn their ways, and to explore and to be explored by them in my turn.

 

To be explored! Here in this dry land it is impossible for those who have never known it to imagine the sensuous thrill of a Naiad's enquiring caress, from the first delicate fluttering ripple, to the more insistent sinuous swirling around and below and between and within of one Naiad, or a full flood of many Naiads - for soon I no longer knew whether one or many, nor could I say now, remembering only how ripples became waves, and waves a torrent, surging and rolling until there was no longer thought, or up or down, or water or air or earth but only one overwhelming rush of pleasure, rising and rising until it overbore me, or all of us, until we were flung, exhausted and amazed, almost unable to remake the world which had been so splintered by the glorious shock of our discovery.

It was a discovery always fresh, or else it was new discovery each time, I know not which, for me and those few who followed in my path. So much we learned then, in and with those living Waters! The memory is sweet indeed, but I have set out not only to _think_ on times past, but to record them for those unhappy exiles who have never themselves known our Nymphs and their ways. Their lavish giving and taking in such play is what is most known of them by Humans, but such is not the whole of their lives. I did once ask them directly on this matter, saying (but I was young) that Dryads could devote unending days to like pleasure, but also had the growth and fruiting of all Narnia in their care. The Naiads, as it seemed to me, had no such task; what therefore was there more to Naiad life? They answered me, in tones which mingled light laughter and real earnest, but what they said I could not understand, since as they spoke the very words seemed to work on their bodies to bring them to oneness with the water; they slipped from me, nor did I see them again for many a day.

For, as this shows, Naiads may change the nature of their being as it pleases them, slipping at will between waterish or fully water or dry. When they choose to 'swim airish', as they call it, they take a form most disturbingly and alluring like that of Women, and yet it is unlike also, with a strangeness always in their eyes, something which speaks of a life remote from ours. Nor do they think as we do. They do not fully understand what makes war, for example, though I have heard them sing ancient laments for far-off battles. Still less do they understand what is meant by the Human word _vengeance_ , as one unhappy event made plain, not long before I left Narnia.

No encounter with a Nymph is free of danger, nor, as they say in Beruna, with any being who looks Human, but isn't. Even Dryads have latterly been known to catch, snatch and possibly (if the rumours from the southern border country are true) _imprison_ good Narnians. But such is not an essential part of the warmer Wood-beings' nature; if the rumours do speak true, these are strange times, indeed!

The perilousness of an engagement with a Naiad is of a different kind; it goes beyond such stray mischances; it is, I believe, inextricably part of intermingling of Human with natures colder and more remote than any Wood-being could be. It is a rapture of abandonment to become one with a Naiad's beauty, and the water's beauty - as who can tell them apart, the Nymph and her habitation? But is not abandonment, O exiles, another word for _loss?_ To speak plainer, the knowledge that they give, and which I treasure still more than all the dry gold I have scraped together here in Calormen, can come at a price higher than a life.

I had long known this, that it was possible for Men, and Women, too, to die in the overpowering ecstasy of those long, wet embraces. I was even conscious that this was a danger especially to young Men, prone to dismissing too lightly the strength of a Naiad in full triumphant spate. I blame myself therefore, that on that day…

~~~o0o~~~

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to autumnia, for her hand-holding and advice! :)


End file.
